By Lin Noueihed
DUBAI (Reuters) - Aysha sold her wedding gold to paytraffickers $200 (100 pounds) to find her and a cousin jobs inDubai. A world away from her village in Uzbekistan, she wasforced to work in a disco and expected to offer sex.
Beaten by her Uzbek boss when she shooed prospectiveclients away, she and her cousin fled and hid in airporttoilets for two days, surviving on tap water.
Aysha's story reveals the dark underbelly of glitzy,fast-paced Dubai, the Gulf Arab trade and tourism hub. It alsohighlights a problem that bedevils many states in the regionand is a bone of contention with their close ally the UnitedStates.
The 26-year-old, who only identified herself as Aysha forfear the traffickers would hurt her family, supports her sonand sick mother back home.
"Some girls like going to discos but I am Muslim, I cannotgo to places where people dance and drink let alone workthere," she said at the shelter in Dubai where she now lives.
Tens of thousands of people arrive in Dubai andneighbouring states each year, seeking a better life in aregion booming on record oil revenues. But the wealth on showin Dubai's sprawling shopping malls, skyscrapers and smartrestaurants attracts traffickers too.
Foreign workers and expatriates with different lifestylesand cultures make up over 80 percent of the more than 4 millionpopulation in the United Arab Emirates, a Muslim country.
Prostitution, even adultery, are illegal yet bars aboundwhere women are available for sex.
In a 2007 report, the U.S. State Department accused itsGulf Arab allies of being among the worst offenders in failingto prevent people from being sold into sex and servitude.
It put the UAE on "Tier 2 Watch List" for not doing enoughbut Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar joined Saudi Arabia andUzbekistan on a list of 16 states subject to possiblesanctions.
In 2006, the UAE -- a wealthy seven-member federationincluding Abu Dhabi and Dubai -- passed the Arab world's firstlaw aimed specifically at combating the trade in humans, withpenalties ranging from five years to life in jail.
Last month, the nearby Gulf kingdom of Bahrain, which has afree trade pact with the United States, issued its own law.
"It is not a stigma on the UAE that human trafficking takesplace because many prosperous, attractive places to live havethis problem," said Anwar Gargash, a minister who heads acommittee set up to coordinate efforts to implement the law.
"The stigma is if we do nothing about it," he said. "Wehave done a lot ... but we have a long way to go."
BROKEN PROMISES
Trafficking is hard to measure but the United Nations saysa revolution in affordable transport and instant communicationhas vastly increased it over the past decade.
It estimates annual profits from human trafficking at morethan $30 billion, with 2.5 million people trapped in forcedlabour, including sexual exploitation, in forced marriages, orpushed to provide body parts for black market trade in organs.
A relatively small proportion of forced labour -- 260,000people -- takes place in the Middle East and North Africa butmost of it -- 230,000 people -- is a result of trafficking, theInternational labour Organization said in a 2005 report.
Aysha's case puts a face on the figures.
She was sitting outside her home in Uzbekistan when she wasapproached by a woman who showed her pictures of Dubai andpromised her a job as a waitress.
When she and her cousin arrived in Dubai, their hair wascut, their eyebrows plucked and they were given skimpy clothesto wear. They were locked up in an apartment with four othergirls who were made to work as prostitutes.
On day two, Aysha and her cousin escaped from the discowhen their boss had to go out on an urgent errand. They flaggeddown a taxi, but the only English word they knew was airport.
They lived in the airport toilets for two days before beingfound and sent to the Uzbek consulate, which sent them to theshelter.
"The other girls wanted to run away too but they were tooafraid. I think they tried before but were caught," Aysha said.
VICTIMS OR CRIMINALS
The UAE took part in the UN's global conference on humantrafficking in Vienna this month, and donated $15 million lastyear to support efforts to fight human trafficking.
But it has faced logistical and cultural problems common tomany countries in trying to stop trafficking.
One difficulty is training police officers from traditionalsocieties to see prostitutes as victims or to deal sensitivelywith rape or abuse. Victims of trafficking are often caught andpunished while traffickers escape.
Gargash said police were being trained to investigate forthe involvement of human trafficking webs in prostitutioncases.
"Women and children are often the victims in these casesand we want the police to have victim sensitivity," he said.
Another issue is reaching out to source nations.
"This is a transnational crime. It is impossible to combatit only on a national basis. We need partnerships with sourcecountries ... We are just delving into this area," Gargashsaid.
Sharla Musabih runs Dubai's City of Hope shelter, the firstof its kind in the Gulf and now home to the two young womenfrom Uzbekistan. She will inaugurate a shelter in Ethiopia thismonth to help stop the trafficking at source.
An American who married an Emirati and moved to Dubai in1984, Musabih says there has been some progress in crackingdown on trafficking for sex but more needs to be done.
"I have dealt with over 400 cases in the past six months,cases of everything from trafficking to maid abuse, domesticviolence or labour abuse," she said. "That situation(trafficking for sex) has improved immensely. I used to seemany. Now I have two girls here and the attempt did not work."
Aysha and her cousin seemed at ease in Musabih's shelter.They giggled and called Musabih "mama", communicating throughsignals or through a fellow Uzbek woman who spoke English.
"They want to come back," the woman said. "In my country,pay is bad, $50 a month when a kilo of meat costs $5 ... Theysay 'I want to go home, arrange a real job and come back'."
(Editing by Clar Ni Chonghaile)
